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Erasing Macintosh HD taking a very long time

Deep apologies if this isn't the right place. Just fairly frustrated at what is wrong.

Some quick background but, I have a Time Machine backup on another partition of a total 2TB HDD, but I wanted to reformat and install a fresh version of the OS.

So, to do so I have gone into Disk Utility from startup and clicked Erase on my "Macintosh HD". Currently I have been waiting well over 6 hours now to remove 516 GB. With the current details being:

Preparing to erase APFS Volume content

Checking mount state

Erasing APFS Volume disk3s1 by deleting and re-adding

Deleting APFS Volume from its APFS Container

Unmounting disk3s1

Deleting volume

At that last step it seems to have just stopped... for 6 hours.... I'd love to understand why, if this is normal, what should I have done differently just for a quick format.

Thank you!

iMac

Posted on Sep 13, 2018 10:46 PM

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Posted on Sep 13, 2018 11:37 PM

APFS is not yet ready for HDDs,

Install El Capitan or Later from Scratch

If possible back up your files.

Restart the computer. Immediately after the chime hold down the CommandandRkeys until the Apple logo appears. When the Utility Menu appears:
Select Disk Utility from the Utility Menu and click on Continue button.
When Disk Utility loads select the volume (indented entry, usually Macintosh HD) from the Device list.
Click on the Erase icon in Disk Utility's main window. A panel will drop down.
Set the Format type to APFS (SSDs only) or Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
Click on the Apply button, then wait for the Done button to activate and click on it.
Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
Select Install OS X and click on the Continue button.

This will install the version of OS X you had installed.

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Erasing Macintosh HD taking a very long time

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